As the interest in power generated from renewable energy resources rapidly increases, increasing attention is being focused systems and methods in which such power is produced, transmitted, delivered, and consumed. Despite technological advances in developing renewable energy resources and in electricity grids, current energy infrastructure suffers from many limitations that need rapid improvement as demand for such power increases, and grid security importance and regulatory requirements for use of “green” resources become more prominent.
Power derived from renewable energy such as solar, wind, wave, and solar thermal resources are becoming increasingly relied upon, but each includes several limitations that impede them from becoming widespread, low-cost, efficient, and continually viable sources of electricity. Each is inherently unreliable, owing to factors such as changes in the time of day and variations in weather conditions that mean that maximized performance of components for each resource is very difficult to manage. Combining any of these together proves even more difficult to manage the inherent inefficiencies involved in operating devices and components to meet energy demand.
Power derived from renewable energy sources is generated both on land and at sea. Offshore energy installations present many complicated challenges. The majority of all offshore energy installations are primarily devoted to carbon-based, non-renewable resources, but each of solar power, wind power, wave, and solar thermal-based power can be and are generated from offshore installations. However, implementing offshore installations are extremely challenging, time-consuming, expensive, and environmentally sensitive. Many issues must addressed by the energy provider wishing to use an offshore base for generating power of any kind. Just a few examples of issues that present significant challenges include storage of power, its transmission to the onshore power grid, providing power to the offshore installation itself, maintenance, distance from the electricity grid, and exposure to weather elements. Additionally, building a large-scale multi-resource platform or installation is very expensive and often has a large environmental impact footprint, making such an installation a questionable investment. All of these issues can reduce the attractiveness of constructing and operating such an installation.
Storage issues are a particularly challenging problem attendant to transferring power generated offshore to the onshore electricity grid. The electricity grid itself contains limited inherent facility for storing electrical energy. Power must be generated constantly to meet uncertain demand, which often results in over-generation (and hence wasted energy) and sometimes results in under-generation (and hence power failures). Additionally, there is limited facility for storing electrical energy at the point of generation, particularly in the case of offshore installations where available space must be maximized and cost and environmental issues are major considerations.
Nonetheless, requirements for buying power generated from “clean” or “green” renewable resources are rapidly increasing. Enhanced ecological and environmental awareness, and a desire to reduce energy dependency on carbon-based fossil fuels and to decrease availability and price concerns resulting from exposure to geopolitical concerns, has lead many governments to implement regulations that either dictate or impose limits on the amount of power produced and consumed that is generated from carbon-based or otherwise non-renewable energy sources. Because of this, there is a strong and continually developing need for efficient and cost-effective power generated from renewable energy resources.
Furthermore, despite these challenges and many others in the existing technology concerning power from renewable resources, there exists a strong need for improved systems and methods of producing, transmitting, distributing and delivering energy so that the needs of power customers can be satisfied from renewable energy sources. There is also a strong and increasing need for clean, reliable, efficient sources of power that are not dependent on geopolitical issues and which maximize the availability of renewable resources to deliver power in real-time as needed and instructed by “smart” electricity grids. There is further a need for an energy management network capable of integrating data from multiple sources that influence the amount of such power available to be generated and required for delivery to customers of electricity grids. Additionally, there exists a strong need in the art for a platform that is capable of efficiently-provided power from multiple renewable energy resources that minimize many of the challenges facing energy providers, as well as for electricity grid infrastructure that is capable of meeting electricity demand substantially from renewable energy resources, maintaining grid infrastructure integrity against increasing public security concerns, and maximizing operational efficiency and capacity to reduce the costs associated with the many inherent inefficiencies with renewable energy resources.
It is accordingly one object of the present invention to provide a renewable energy resource management system and method of managing power distribution from a renewable resource provider to an intelligent power distribution network, that addresses many of the problems and challenges facing the buyers and sellers of power derived from renewable energy resources such as wind, solar, wave, and solar thermal energy, and with generating, transmitting and distributing power to meet the capacity of a developing, sophisticated, and intelligent electricity grid infrastructure. It is a further object of the present invention to provide a multi-resource renewable energy installation and method of operation that addresses problems and challenges with generating power from renewable energy resources in an efficient and cost-effective manner to meet the substantially increasing demand, need, and requirement for power from such resources. It is yet another object of the present invention to provide an improved electricity grid infrastructure, and methods of operating and automating the same, that address the problems and challenges associated with meeting electricity demand substantially from renewable energy resources, maintaining grid infrastructure security, and maximizing operational efficiency and capacity to meet real-time power demands of grid customers.
It will be apparent to those of skill in the art that one would be not be motivated to combine existing art, and one would not consider it reasonable to try to combine existing art, to arrive at the teachings of the present invention. There are many reasons why existing technology teaches against the disclosures of the present invention. For example, there are inherent market biases favoring the use of existing, non-renewable energy resources. Existing energy production infrastructure strongly favors the use of non-renewable energy resources, and the costs of generating power from renewable energy resources are far higher, despite the availability of and ease with which wind, solar, wave, and solar thermal energy can be obtained. Additionally, energy commodity prices and weather conditions fluctuate widely, making it very difficult and often prohibitively expensive to efficiently generate, transmit, and distribute power derived from renewable energy resources. These fluctuations, and the inherent inefficiencies resulting from them in utilizing renewable resources, make it difficult for providers to justify investing in the infrastructure needed to develop, transmit, and distribute power from renewable energy resources. This includes investing in and building offshore installations, whether dedicated to a single renewable resource or hosting multiple components that generate power from several different renewable resources in the same location. It will therefore be readily apparent based on all of the above that it would not be obvious to combine any of the teachings of the prior art to arrive at the specific technological advances discussed herein.